Now once, on the occasion of the Kaumudî-festival, it happened that the king desired to contemplate the splendour of that festivity in his capital. He mounted his royal chariot and took a drive through the town, which exhibited a pleasant aspect. Its streets and squares had been sprinkled and cleansed; their white ground was strewed with many-coloured flowers; gay flags and banners were floating aloft; everywhere there was dancing and singing, representations of burlesques, ballets and music; the mingled scents of flowers, incense, odoriferous powders, perfumes, garlands, strong liquors, also of the perfumed water and the ointments used in ablutions, filled the air with fragrance; lovely articles were being exposed for sale; the principal streets were thronged by a merry crowd of townsmen and landsmen in their best dress. While making this tour, the king came near the house of Abhipâraga. Now Unmâdayantî, who was angry with the king because he had spurned her--had she not inauspicious marks?--feigning curiosity to see him, placed herself in his way, illuminating by her brilliant figure the flat roof of her house, as a flash of lightning does the top of a cloud; he at least, she thought within her heart, must be able to keep the firmness of his mind and the power over his senses unshaken by the sight of an inauspicious person such as I am. Accordingly, while the king, curious to behold the splendour of his capital, was looking around, his eye suddenly fell upon her, when she was facing him. On beholding her, the monarch, 8, 9. Though his eyes were accustomed to the attraction of the wanton graces of the beauties in his zenana; though, owing to his attachment to the path of virtue, his disposition was a modest one, and he had exercised himself in subduing his organs of sense; though he possessed in a high degree the virtue of constancy; though he had a strong feeling of shame and his looks were afraid of the looks of young women belonging to others--notwithstanding this, he could not prevent the Love-god's triumph, and gazed a long gaze at that woman, powerless to turn his eyes from her face. 10. 'Is she perhaps the embodied Kaumudî or the Deity of that house? is she an Apsaras or a Demoness? For it is no human figure she has.' Thus the king considered and could not look enough at her; and the chariot passing away did not comply with his heart's desire. He went back to his palace, like one absent-minded, thinking of nothing but her; his firmness of mind had been confounded by Manmatha. So he asked his charioteer Sunanda secretly: 11. 'Do you know, whose is the house that was surrounded by a white wall, and who is she whose beauty did shine there like lightning in a white cloud?'